Completions and Connections: Baby New Year
by LeighKelly
Summary: Three years after the epilogue of Completions and Connections, Brittany and Santana wait for the arrival of the newest member of their family. One-shot New Years fic.


**I couldn't help myself...here's a little visit with Completions and Connections Brittana three years in the future...**

* * *

 **December 31, 2018**

 _ **New York, New York—Eastern Standard Time**_

There was snow for Christmas. It had been so many years without it, that I actually _forgot_ that it was a possibility. It snowed, and then it just kept right on snowing, until I sort of felt like I was going crazy. Okay, maybe not crazy, it was like four days, but still, the snow was heavy, and I'd really wanted to take some pictures, so it was annoying. Anyway, it finally stopped, and I was behind the camera in Washington Square Park, taking picture after picture after picture until—

"Babe, I love you, but if you take one more fucking picture of me, I'm go into divorce you." _Whoa._ Those were some serious fighting words from my wife, and I simultaneously lowered my camera and raised my eyebrows.

"Really?" Not _really_ like was she going to divorce me, obviously, but _really,_ was she serious with even joking...or...threatening, I guess, about that?

"Sorry." She looked down and bit her lip, arching her back to work out a kink and setting her hand on the top of her belly. Oh, did I mention she was pregnant? I probably should have, right? If you asked her, the medical professional who dealt with vaginas on the regular, she would tell you she was _ninety-six months_ pregnant. I'm not a medical professional or anything, but I'll correct that and say that she was actually closer to forty-one weeks. Give or take a day. "It's just like, how many pictures of baby beluga can you have?"

"Um, so I'm never sure if when you say baby beluga you're talking about yourself, or the baby, or like, that ice cream sundae you ate the other day, because you're kind of starting to use that interchangeably for everything."

"Well I was talking about _me_ this time, but you _did_ take a lot of pictures of my ice cream the other day, now that you mention it."

"It looked _really_ good..." I trailed off, not reminding her that she wouldn't share, and maybe almost made me the first person in the history of the world who had their fingers cut off by a spoon. She was pregnant with our baby, she could have one of my _kidneys_ to eat if she wanted. Well...that's actually gross, and might encourage the _other_ baby beluga to have a thirst for human blood, so maybe not. "Also you're just really pretty, and I can't help myself."

"You—" She stepped closer and pulled my by the lapels of my coat and kissed the tip of my cold nose. "Are a smooth talker."

"That is the _opposite_ of true." I laughed, since even after three years of being with Santana, I was still pretty bumbling and disastrous _always._ True story, I accidentally said _vagina_ in my speech at the rehearsal dinner for our wedding, and not in a _my soon to be wife is a nurse of vaginas way_ either.

"You're better than you think. You managed to knock me up, didn't you?"

"These are some _magic_ fingers." I waggled my eyebrows, and she pulled me closer for a kiss.

"Now are you going to hold my hand, or continue to stalk me with the camera?"

"I _guess_ l'll hold your hand. _But,_ let it be known that this doesn't change my belief that we should have stayed in bed for this entire week, _and_ that you're actually the bigger workaholic of the two of us." She opened her mouth to argue, and I arched an eyebrow. "Really? You were due eight days ago, and you're going to _work_ right now. Remember that weird alternate reality episode of _Friends_ where Phoebe had a heart attack and snuck out of the hospital? That is so you right now."

"Lies!" She giggled, like actually _giggled,_ and okay, I love my wife a _lot._ She's the cutest thing, and picture this for me, okay? Santana, most gorgeous woman alive, walking around in maternity scrubs and snow boots and a big heavy coat and _giggling._ Really, it's a miracle that I was even still _alive._ "It's just a few hours. I want to see as many of my patients as I can, before I'm out for three months. Three months, that I'm going to be snuggling with our cute baby, and three months that _you_ aren't traveling for."

"You gotta make me picture that and throw off my train of thought, don't you?"

"I mean...if it works." She smirked, and I rolled my eyes. "Besides, if I go into labor, what better place than at a gynecology office? Unique's delivered babies before."

"Yeah, _that's_ not selling it, baby."

"C'mon, it's fine, I promise. Just until two, and then we'll have all night to get our New Years on."

Obviously, I didn't argue. I knew if _I_ was the one carrying, and my job didn't involve getting on airplanes to places that may or may not have the best medical facilities—and more importantly, my _wife_ —I would be doing the exact same thing. Santana was totally exhausted all the time, I mean, duh, she had an eight pound human just living in her body, but we both knew she would lose her mind if she had to stay home and wait. We just did all of our getting ready stuff at night, washing tiny baby clothes, cooking food for our freezer, in case our long ago bad luck struck again and we got snowed in and had to eat our leather shoes, which I'm pretty sure wouldn't be good for a nursing mom, and just spending time together.

Okay, so let me just say, I never thought I'd be this _huge_ sap when it came to having a baby, but I was, totally and completely. Basically, I was laying between her legs _always—_ clean up your mind, not like that...well, sometimes...frequently maybe...like that too—just talking to her stomach. Clearly, I was good at that, since I was like, the number one rambler, and I'd talk to the baby for hours and hours, even after Santana fell asleep with her hands all tangled up in my hair. Or maybe I _put her_ to sleep with all my stories, who knows? But I was obsessed with it, the pregnancy, the idea of the baby, everything. Plus, pregnant women? Hot. Pregnant love of my life? _Unreal._

Anyway, she went to work. She'd inevitably come home with swollen ankles and an achy back, but I understood it. The only reason _I_ wasn't working was because I'd grounded myself a month ago, afraid that I'd somehow get trapped in some rural part of China where I couldn't be reached by phone or something, and Santana would have the baby without me, making me forever be the mom that missed her own child's birth. Not cool. I'd calmed down my traveling as a whole, once we'd gotten married, since being away from Santana sucked, and now, in the past nine months, and going know the future, I was slowing down even more. In case you missed all of this, I was going to be a mom. An actual _mom._ I'd seen some cool shit in my time, but really, nothing in the world could compare. The things would always be there for me to take pictures of, but the early years of my kid's life, _nope._

While Santana was at work, I cleaned the apartment. I'd moved into hers right after we'd gotten engaged—much to Lord Tubbington's dismay—and then six months after we'd gotten married, we'd bought a bigger place together, with a second bedroom, and a gym, and a doorman, like the proper young urban professionals we were. The apartment was pretty big, and it took me most of the morning to clean, especially when I had to stop eight-nine times to look into the nursery with my big fat cat. I still wasn't over it, the day I'd come home from two weeks in Indonesia, five months into Santana's pregnancy, and she'd covered my eyes and led me into the room. With Mike and Tina's help, she'd taken the furniture we'd picked out together and designed the whole thing, right down to the giant world map mural above the crib, and the carefully stenciled letters _"love you to the highest mountains and the deepest seas,"_ so our baby could see the whole world right from their bedroom, and whenever I _did_ have to travel, she could pin on the map just where I was. Like, she'd actually made a photo frame pin with my face on it, okay? _Where_ _in the world is Mommy?_ Go away with that, adorable and perfect wife.

I really wanted to make New Year's Eve special, since, providing she didn't go into labor in the next twelve hours, it would be our last one with just the two if us. I knew she had absolutely no desire to go out, though if she did, I totally would have splurged even on something ridiculous, like four-hundred dollar Olive Garden dinners—what Baby Mama wants, Baby Mama gets, and Baby Mama loves herself some breadsticks—so I checked about eight-hundred websites about superstitions surrounding food, before settling on filets and shrimp, since lobsters were an absolute no-go for New Years, because of the bad luck, not the pregnancy. Wouldn't want to move backwards, obviously.

When she finally came home, definitely closer to three than two, _Santana, Santana,_ she was, to the surprise of no one, completely beat. She dropped her coat on the bench in the entryway and kicked off her boots, before standing there in her scrubs, hand pressed to her belly, just trying to remember what to do with herself next.

"Kiss me hello."

"Huh?" She broke out of her trance and looked at me, sitting on the couch editing some digital photos on the computer.

"What you're supposed to do next."

"Oh, obviously. God, sorry, I'm just—"

"Exhausted?"

"Totally and completely." She sank down next to me on the couch and threw her head back, prompting me to kiss her lips and push her hair out of her eyes.

"How many?"

"Patients or centimeters?"

"Both?"

"Eleven and one."

"I hope eleven is the number of patients, not the number of centimeters, or maybe we shouldn't be sitting here."

"I _wish_ it was the number of centimeters, then at least I could stop thinking about how much people say Pitocen feels like their insides are being clawed out. Listen, Monster, you're not taking up permanent residence in my uterus, so let's get that straight."

"Only thing straight about your Mama is the way she talks." I told the baby, and Santana threw her head back again laughing.

"And that's the truth." She yawned and stretched her arms up over her head.

"What do you wanna do tonight? Babe, I'd love to go out, but I'm pretty sure I'd be sleeping on the table."

"Far cry from last New Year's Eve in Bora Bora."

"You mean the night you would have gotten me pregnant if your tongue had the right parts?"

"I absolutely mean that night. Starting the new year with a bang, obviously." I waggled my eyebrows. "So no skinny dipping under a hut in the Pacific Ocean?"

"Unless you want me to deliver our baby myself on an airplane, then probably not." She gave her belly and exaggerated rub. "Plus, I think it's already 2019 in French Polynesia."

"Look at you, getting all good with time zones!"

"What can I say? My wife enjoys hopping between them. Gotta keep up." She yawned again and let her eyes flutter closed.

"Baby, take a nap. Since I love to wine and dine, you, obviously, 'cuz I'm smooth like that, and I knew you wouldn't feel like going out, I'm going to cook, we're going to toast, and _maybe_ we'll still start the year with a bang." I winked.

"I'll hold you to that, Brittany Pierce-Lopez."

"You better."

Just so you know, pregnant Santana sleeping on the couch in her scrubs was the actual cutest thing. She curled up on her side and cradled her belly, and seriously, I just stared at her trying to figure out how she was even _real._ It was while before she woke up, and I'd long started dinner, knowing after a day of work and a long nap, she'd be totally ravenous. I was just putting the shrimp cocktail on ice to chill—because duh, New Years Eve date night _totally_ required shrimp cocktail—when her arms wrapped around my waist, and her chin nuzzled into my shoulder.

"Hi."

"Hey Mama." I turned around with my hands in the air, so I didn't get shrimp juice all over her. "How's your vagina?"

"I love you so much." She giggled and kissed my nose. "Have I really been giving you a report on my cervix that often that you now just expect it?"

"You, Dr. Not-a-Doctor, are doing exactly what I expect. Besides, your vagina is totally in the top five things I'm most interested in."

"Naturally." Santana put my hand on the top of her belly, where the little monster was lazily moving around. "Also, no change, so it looks like no baby in 2018."

"I mean, I'm obviously not a medical professional, but we still have a few more hours!"

"We've been saying that since _Christmas."_

"I think they just want their own thing. Christmas is our thing, you know? Like, maybe they don't want to share their birthday with the anniversary of our _everything."_

"That's true, I guess." She conceded, her cute swollen face doing that soft thing she always did. "And maybe they know Grandma Maribel likes to flip her lid when people do things on Christmas."

"I guess she just wasn't prepared for us to cancel our wedding and get married in the park on Christmas night. I'm pretty sure she still hates me for that idea."

"She can get over it. I loved our wedding, and I loved being in Ireland with you when we were _supposed_ to get married." On her tiptoes, she kissed my lips. "But I guess you're right about the baby."

"I mean, I wouldn't want to be a kid born on the anniversary of my moms' first kiss, first sex, engagement, wedding...and future other stuff. There's probably stuff we haven't done in bed yet that we can save until next Christmas." I winked, thinking there probably _wasn't_ much we had left that didn't cross over into _mega_ kinky, but, maybe? "But I'm sorry you're getting anxious."

"Britt, I just so don't want to be induced. And, I know that I know about uteri and vaginas, but if I set the record for world's longest pregnancy..."

"It wouldn't surprise me that our kid was an overachiever."

"Ha. Ha. Ha. Let's see how funny it is when it's your uterus."

"Probably still a _little_ funny?"

"Mmm, probably _not."_

"C'mon, little monster." I put both hands on the sides of her belly, and rubbed in the way that did to Santana what rubbing behind Lord Tubbington's ears did to him. "We love that you're an overachiever, but I once set the record in my college for largest number of Dots eaten in a single sitting, and I can tell you, from personal experience, that not all records are good records. Trust me, puking rainbows? _Not_ as cool as it looks in the gifs, and if you ask Uncle Mike and Aunt Tina, they'll probably tell you that cleaning it up sucks even more."

"Ew, Britt, gross." Santana feigned a gag. "I'm glad you're not telling our baby this at the _beginning_ of my pregnancy, because my puke wouldn't be rainbows."

"True, sorry, I was just trying to make my point. Which was, we know all about coming out, and _you_ can come out of there any time you want...preferably sooner, rather than later."

While I finished up trimming the asparagus—even though it was impossible for me to eat them without mentioning the weird pee smell—Santana got in the shower. I, of course, went in to surprise her in there after, even though shower sex had me way freaked out while she was pregnant, after she'd sprained her wrist doing just that last year. Yeah, super fun to explain to the hospital staff, especially the creepy dude Santana had gone to nursing school with. She...um...fell getting out of the tub, obviously. But I just really like washing her hair and seeing how sexy she looked, like some yet to be made lesbian wilderness movie, where the blonde I've sees the brunette bathing under a cascading waterfall or something. I don't know, I'm not a movie maker, I just know it's always a blonde and a brunette, and for obvious reasons, I'm totally good with that.

Lesbian waterfall movies aside—like a _real_ movie, of the Oscar winning caliber, not porn—when we got out of the shower, Santana was extra cute. Even though we were just staying home, she came up with the genius idea that we should get dressed up anyway, and she seriously came out in the sparkly maternity gown that she'd worn when we'd gone to her big alumni dinner at Columbia earlier in the month. Hashtag-winning, until the day that I die though, with my super pregnant wife grinning at me, all dressed up like that. I mean, she could be wearing just my old Cheesasaurus Rex shirt, and I'd be winning just as much, but still.

"Escort you to the table, m'lady?" I smirked, twisting my hair up in a French knot and offering her an arm?

"My lady knight in shining armor." She feigned a swoon, pressing the back of her hand to her forehead and sighing dramatically. "I love you."

"I love you a lot, Lady Pierce-Lopez." Pecking her lips, I helped her stand through her groan, and she shook her head when my body amped into go mode, thinking it could be more than just general aches.

I pulled out her chair for her at the kitchen table, and she leaned over to light the candles, setting up a really nice ambiance for us. With our jobs, we ended in eating out a lot—no pun intended there—so a homemade meal at our own table was really, really nice. While I served the food, she filed up our fancy champagne flutes, an obvious gift from her parents, with the bottle of our favorite champagne, approved by her, Emma the midwife, and of course, the Internet, for our last quiet celebration together, and when I sat, she beat me to raising her glass for the toast.

" _Finally_ get to do it." She giggled, the candlelight filtered through amber liquid reflecting on her face, and making her even prettier.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, you won't beat me to it next year. I function better on a lack of sleep than you do."

"Yeah, weirdo, because you _never_ sleep, you're used to it." She stuck her tongue between her teeth and rolled her eyes. "Now shhh, I'm trying to make a toast."

"Wait!" I jumped up, biting back my smile as she cocked an eyebrow, then leaned over to kiss her, then kiss her some more, and maybe a _little_ more after that, until she was all dreamy-eyes. "Okay, go ahead."

"Don't try those cheater moves on me, Pierce."

"Actually, it's Pierce- _Lopez_ now. Not sure you've heard, but some hot chick agreed to share her name."

"Hmm, sounds like a lucky lady."

"Meh, I'm not sure who's luckier, her or me." Then I couldn't resist. "I always spend New Years alone, in crowds. I'm not alone and this year."

"Okay, number one, I thought we decided from the first time we saw the movie that _I_ would totally be Therese, and you would be Carol. But you're a distractor, and I'm giving my toast now." She swiped her tongue over her bottom lip and brought the glass back up. "Since you mentioned it, I am _so_ glad, like infinitely, that I never have to spend another New Year alone, or with some meaningless date. I'm so glad, again, that I get to both end and start another year with you.n To us, my greatest love, my best friend, my wife, the other mother of this kiddo who's cooking away in here. 2017 will always be the year we began this journey to motherhood, and got really, _really_ lucky with how quickly it happened, and it'll always be another year that I loved you more and more every single day. Sharing a life and a home and a _love_ with you is my _favorite_ thing, so happy new year to you, Brittany Pierce-Lopez, my biggest piece of luck."

"Jeeze, Santana." I clinked my glass with hers, and wiped away the moisture that gathered in the corner of my eyes. "Way to get me all emotional."

"Please, like you don't do it to me like five times a week."

"That's it? Only five?" I winked, and she grabbed my hand across the table.

"I mean it though, I know the next...eighteen years or so are going to be nuts, and I want you know know how much I love you, and how glad I am that I decided to go to the store for cranberry sauce."

"I think we'll forever be the only couple in the world brought together by gelatinous fruit matter."

"Such a romantic, Britt."

"You know I am."

"I do know that, dork face."

" _Your_ dork face."

"My dork face, always."

Watching pregnant Santana eat is an epic test up endurance for me, _especially_ if it's something she really enjoys. Filed under things I never thought I'd say, but wifey moaning into a forkful of potatoes? I don't know how that's a thing that turns me on, but it absolutely is. Plus, she totally kept giving me bedroom eyes across the table—at least I _think_ it was me, but, I wouldn't have been all that surprised if it had been her steak. Not that I'd have been offended or anything, it was a _really_ good steak. But anyway, we finished eating, and we lasted about ten minutes on the couch watching the primetime hours of New Year's Rockin' Eve, before we started making out, me kneeling to straddle Santana, cautious about what was between us. Kissing her, of course, got me going, and I couldn't help but start playing with them hem of her dress, creeping my hand higher and higher up, until I discovered that Santana, sex goddess she was, was wearing no panties. She just winked at me, no shame, and spread her legs, inviting me to touch her further, and groaned almost immediately at how wet she was.

Seriously, how sensitive she was absolutely drove me wild, and though, after a few minutes of trailing my fingers up and down her thighs, stopping just short of dipping them inside of her, I thought about taking things to the bedroom, I decided in favor of giving her a cheeky smirk and slithering off the couch. We'd definitely learned to vary our sex positions in the last nine months, but while _Santana_ kneeling at the edge of the couch, or the bed...or the computer desk happened more frequently than ever before to accommodate her belly, _I_ was sorely lacking in that department, and about to rectify that. Santana wasted absolutely no time hiking up her dress, and by the time I settled between her legs, she'd already leaned back into the couch cushions, put a pillow beneath her hips, and was palming her swollen breasts. Not wanting to keep my lady love waiting, I pressed a kiss to the underside of her belly—because I could resist exactly _never—_ and then eased her knees up so I'd have better access to her sex.

"Babe, I need you to _not_ tease me right now, okay?" Her pupils were blown already, and her fingers dug into my shoulder blade.

"Mhmm." I hummed, my lips almost touching her, and the vibrations made her shiver. "Your wish is my command."

She sunk further back into the pillows when my tongue swiped through her, collecting her arousal, and I flicked my eyes up, watching her, eyes closed, lips parted, and breasts heaving. I wasn't going to tease her, not at all, but with how blissed out she looked, the top of her dress tugged down so she could play with her own nipples, I didn't want it to be over for her as soon as it started. So I took my time, I scratched my nails down her thighs, I gently probed my tongue inside of her, her strong thigh muscles clenching every time I twisted inside of her. It wasn't until she wove her fingers through my hair, and nudged my head upwards, that I wrapped my lips around her clit, feeling it pulse against my lips. I alternated suckling and penetrating her, eyes never leaving her face, until she shattered, whole body quaking with her orgasm, and her clasped hand tugging at my hair.

"Need to kiss you." She panted, her eyes still closed and her back still arched. "Fuck, Britt, get up here."

Obviously, demanding Santana is incredibly sexy, but when she's sex flushed, has her dress in such a way that it only covers her belly, breasts and sex on full display, _and_ demanding? Sexy doesn't even describe it. To be honest, it's sort of a miracle that I didn't come right there. But, luckily for me, I didn't. I stood up and leaned into her, catching her lips in a kiss, and moaning at _her_ moan when she tasted herself on mine. She held onto my face, kissing, kissing, kissing until I thought I might pass out.

"Wanna take me to bed? Cuz what I want to do to you, Brittany, is _not_ going to work on the couch." She rasped into my ear, totally making my vagina clench. What? Don't lie, you totally know that it's happened to you before.

I helped her up from the couch, and even nine months pregnant, she managed to shimmy right out of her dress and get me out of _mine_ when we got into the bedroom. She lied back on the bed and beckoned me to her, a crooked half smile on her face as I scrambled up to hover over her. I'll tell you this, since I may have verbal diarrheal, but some things are just _way_ too personal for me to share the graphic details of, there is some special kind of trust and intimacy that needs to exist when you lower yourself onto your wife's face and grip the headboard of the bed while she pleasures you. For real. And that's all I'll say about that.

So after her mouth worked all kids of wonders on me, I made love to her again, all slow and sweet, like maybe deep down I _knew_ that it would be awhile before I could again—and also because I hoped the orgasms would help induce labor. Afterward was curled up on my chest, her belly pressed into my side. I'd turned the TV on in the bedroom, and I combed my fingers through Santana's hair, half watching Bruno Mars perform in Times Square, half watching my wife fight to stay awake. It was definitely before midnight when she fell asleep, but I kissed her in her sleep as the clock struck midnight, murmuring _happy new year, my love,_ against her lips. I was totally fine with ringing in the new year with my naked, sleeping wife, and just after I'd kissed her for the first time in 2019, I shut off the TV and pulled the blanket tight around the two of us and promptly passed out.

"Britt. Britt, wake up." I bolted straight upright in bed at the sound of Santana's voice, and I accidentally smashed my head on the headboard—and _not_ in a good way.

"Ah shit!"

"Babe, are you alright?" Santana was really quick to check my head, and I blinked my eyes awake, getting _super_ confused that she was fully dressed.

"Yeah, just a dumb head bang." I rubbed the back of my head. "What are you doing? What time is it?"

"Well...I didn't want to get you all freaked out, but I guess having sex really does induce labor. My water broke, and my contractions—"

"Your _water broke?"_ I scrambled up out of bed, maybe kind of knocking into her a little. "Oh my God, baby, I'm sorry, are you okay? I didn't mean to do that!"

"I'm fine, sweetheart." Her laugh was different, strained, nervous-like, and I tried not to let it get me on _higher_ alert. But, like, my wife, a lady-parts specialist, who'd checked her cervix pretty much every hour for the past two weeks, was standing there in her yoga pants and a big cozy sweatshirt, and—holy crap, I needed to stop thinking and start _moving._

"Wait. Santana. Don't move!" I jumped up from the bed totally naked, and I grabbed my camera from the dresser. She cocked her eyebrow, as if to ask _really,_ but because she's the best wife in the world, she put her chin on her hand and smiled. "Okay! Let's go!"

"Maybe you wanna put some clothes on?" Her laugh was less strained, and I looked down at my body, cracking up. "I love naked you, but I'm not sure going out like that's a good idea..."

"Yeah, oops, okay!"

I scrambled into clothes, obviously tripping no less than seven times, and I splashed water on my face and brushed my teeth in record time. Neither of us had really looked at a clock, and so when we walked out into the night to get a cab, I was surprised that the streets were still packed with New Years Eve partiers. After screeching _lady's gonna have a baby in the street if you don't let me get her in a cab!—_ after which, Santana had doubled over, and while I'd thought she was in pain, she was just _laughing_ at my antics—I hip checked a drunk frat type dude who thought he was _really_ going to share a cab with us, and finally took a breath when we were on our way uptown to the birthing center.

"Hey Brittany?" Santana looked up, from where she had her head resting on my shoulder.

"Mmhm?"

"We're having a baby."

"Holy shit." I sucked in a whole bunch of air, then sputtered, super sexily. "We are."

I know birthing centers are supposed to be super calm and serene, so I think you can imagine that I walked in like a bull in a china shop. How Santana was calm in between contractions was absolutely beyond me, like, different plane beyond me, but we walked in, and while I was resisting the urge to act like I was in a Steve Martin movie or something, screaming _my wife is having a baby,_ she was calmly telling the receptionist her profession, and that she was at about four centimeters, like she was ordering a goddamn ham sandwich or something. You know that thing about yin and yang creating harmony? Well, we'd didn't exactly fit the yin and yang profiles, _but_ it was definitely a case of opposites attract. That's a Steve Martin movie too, right? I don't know, maybe not. Anyway...

Her labor was weird. Or maybe it wasn't, I was just the photojournalist, _she_ was the one who'd done two years on the labor and delivery floor early in her career, _just_ in case she ever wanted to do obstetrics, and not just gynecology. The point was, even with the books I'd read—and I'd read a _lot,_ on my flights, in bed across the world, all over the place— I didn't know if it was normal that she'd gone from casually chatting with the nurse about how we'd met to crouched down on the floor in absolute _agony_ in about three minutes. But that was what happened. After two weeks of our baby just lazily hanging out in there, already shifted into birthing position, they were suddenly very, very anxious to evacuate. It killed me, how much I couldn't even _help_ Santana, besides kneeling behind her and letting her lean on me.

"Jesus fucking Christ! Tell me why I said no drugs!" Her grip was like a vice on me, and I tried to use my chin to wipe her sweaty hair off her face. When I opened my mouth to speak, she shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. "Don't!"

"I'm sorry, baby." I mean, what else was I going to say? I obviously wasn't going to tell her that I felt this weird twist ache in my stomach over her being in pain like this. I said a lot of stuff without thinking, but I didn't think talking about my psychosomatic pain while she was literally birthing a human was anything she wanted to hear. "I love you a lot."

"Santana." Emma, the slightly—I'm saying slightly to be nice—neurotic midwife, who I'd honestly forgotten was in the room, interrupted my trying to think of things to say that would make her feel better. "You're at ten centimeters. Are you comfortable like this, or do you want to move to the bed?"

"Oh yeah, totally comfortable, feels just like last New Year's Day when I was sipping a fucking Mai Thai on the deck of our hut in Bora Bora. Just missing the warm breeze." She barked, and I felt her back muscles tense against me.

"Ohh...kay?" Emma looked a little scared, and because Santana was the sweetest thing—for real, like sometimes she tries to be tough, but she's this cute little cupcake—even in pain, she softened in apology.

"I don't think I can move. Here is fine, just...ugh! Fuck."

"Alright." Emma's small frame crouched lower to accommodate Santana giving birth on the floor, and Santana leaned further into me. I kissed her lips, because I loved her, and she was so, so beautiful, and it was all I could do. "I want you to start pushing. Your little one is ready to come out."

It was like those were the words Santana needed to hear, and even through the screaming and the tears, she was so strong. Like really, I've seen most of the world, all seven wonders, a hundred-and-fourteen countries, people and cultures of all types, but let me tell you, I've seen no one braver and nothing more beautiful than the woman I love more than life itself giving birth to the child we'd planned for and hoped for any _everything._ Whatever, I'm sappy, I'm biased, and I totally don't care. If I wasn't holding onto Santana, I'd be taking a hundred thousand pictures, because it should have been a mural, or like, the entire April issue of _Discover._ New York Woman Gives Birth to Baby, _totally_ anthropological stuff.

"Almost there, baby, you're doing great." I cooed into her ear, kissing the crease at the corner of her eye. "We're gonna meet our _baby_ soon."

"Forget Mommy's puke story! Be an overachiever, _come on!"_ She whimpered, then let out this feral sounding screech when she pushed harder than before.

"Brittany, you wanted to catch, right? You're going to want to come over here now, the baby is crowning."

"Baby?" I checked with Santana that she'd be okay if I let her go, and she just nodded, bracing herself for me to let go,

I probably rambled a _lot_ of crap to Emma, probably about how I'd always thought Santana's vagina was beautiful, but it was _way_ more beautiful than ever with a human head coming out of it, and totally _not_ like _Alien_ , as I'd expected, and then with one big push on Santana's part, our baby's head appeared. I started crying my eyes out, the instant I saw those little eyes, that little nose, the thick head of dark hair that had given Santana heartburn all those months, and Emma had to remind me to actually catch them. Honestly, I didn't even think to ask the gender of the baby, until I'd laid him on Santana's chest, and he'd let out an epic scream. There he was, my son, my little guy, and I couldn't do anything but kiss all over Santana's face, for the first time I can remember, not reaching for a camera to capture it all. That would come later, but first, just _us_.

"Hi, baby beluga." She hummed, after she'd delivered the placenta, the little baby working as some sort of painkiller as she distracted herself touching every feature of his, tracing the dimple on his cheek, the strained muscles from the shock of coming into a new word, rocking him, soothing him. "Welcome to the world."

"You. Are. Magical." I kissed her lips over and over, our little baby pressed between us, talking to both of them. "Like, holy shit, baby."

"Oh my God." She laughed, no nervous laugh, a real Santana laugh, the laugh I fell in love with. The two of us just stared down at our naked baby, Santana kissing his head, then me kissing his head, then her kissing his head again, on repeat, forever and ever. "Babe, _holy shit_ is in the first sentence you've ever said in front of our baby."

"I'm sorry, but _holy shit._ Look at him, Santana. Look at what you made. Look at him. He's perfect, and I love you, and I love him, and welcome to the world, our Baby New Year."

"Our Baby New Year." Santana's tears fell on his head, and it was just the three of us in the whole world. "Wow. I can't believe how much I love him."

"He's perfect, you're perfect, our family...I just... _holy shit."_

"I love you so much, Brittany Pierce-Lopez."

"I love you too, Santana Pierce-Lopez. And baby Fate Pierce-Lopez."

"You're still not selling me on _Fate,_ crazy face."

"Destiny then?" I had to tease her, even as I watched our perfect, perfect son stretch and snuffle and just be all around perfect.

"Ridiculous." She laid her head back against the pillows, so exhausted, while he nuzzled her breast. "If I didn't know you were kidding..."

"You'd love me anyway."

"I would, you and our son, for this new year and all the new years for every and ever."


End file.
